In this special edition of the show – which was broadcast live last night over at The Assembly Call – Morris is joined by Inside the Hall editor Alex Bozich and Chronic Hoosier for a recap of IU’s season and a look ahead to the offseason. Among the topics discussed:

· How IU’s season should be viewed as a whole
· Whether Indiana’s defense can make major improvements over the offseason
· Potential NBA decisions for Yogi Ferrell and Troy Williams and program attrition
· What adding a player like Thomas Bryant would mean for next season

And plenty more, so tune in and enjoy. As always, feel free to drop the show a note at [email protected].

Defense will be a lot better next year. defense is a frame of mind, An attitude! They just have to get there and they have the athletes to have a great defense. Everyone’s back hopefully Hanner and Robinson move on. Definitely need a big man to hold down the middle. Can’t wait for next year should be unbelievable. Good luck Tom Crean some of us are still with you.

NotTheRealSteveEyl

Liked the podcast, and I know that Alex is not going to say anything really inflammatory/revealing because he actually needs to get in the locker room, talk to Crean, etc., but I would LOVE to know what he really thinks.

Well, having talked with Alex during the pre- and post-show portions of our conversations, which are not recorded (but are always so compelling), I will say that I don’t think anything Alex would say privately is that much different from what he said publicly. He may not divulge some wild rumors he hears, be he otherwise shoots it really straight.

I would love to think this, but I wonder how much that frame of mind can change from one year to the next. Why wouldn’t it have changed during the season when so much was at stake and even a marginal improvement on D would have been such a big difference?

I don’t agree with the personnel part. We may not have a perfectly balanced roster like in 2013, but there is plenty of talent on this team to compete at a top-15 level consistently. Maybe we are not quite Final 4 caliber without a true big man, but the personnel is there to be better than we were this year.

iunbears

You’re talking mostly freshmen and sophomores. James Blackmon senior is a great offensive coach but suspect at defense see DeShawnn Thomas. and they did get it a lot better. yes they had a slump, but their Big Ten tournament games they played much better defensively and against Wichita state they played way better than Kansas defensively.They get a big guy for next year they’ll be a team to be reckoned with!

MadMaxfor3

Strength comes with time in the weight room. Personnel will hopefully be on it’s way (i.e. Bryant and/ or Maker) to help at least provide a rim protector. Coaching I’ll give you that one. To say this roster is not capable of being an elite team though is a load of horse poop. IU has two McDonald’s all Americans in the backcourt with the potential to add a McDAA in the front court. They were the youngest team in the tournament bar none. Relax and step back off the edge of the cliff dude

You’re We’ll need him, even if we get Bryant. 6′ 9″ athletes like that are not easy to find.. Besides, one of the rules of this site are ‘we do not speculate on guys leaving the program, prior to them making their own decision..
Alex is isn’t that right? Isn’t that a ‘no-no’?

TomJameson

I think that frame of mind will be there, and here’s why.

To set the stage .. think of all the freshmen coming in, how young the team is, and (right or wrong) the coaching is focused on the offense. Pretty sure I ‘heard’ CTC say this was the case. Results were a pretty good offense, but a very sub-par defense.

Throughout the year the defense trended upward. Still bad, no argument there, but things got marginally better. Meanwhile the offense would sometimes sputter which in turn highlighted the dire need for a good defense.
Toward the end of the year the defense was getting better, mainly because of the intensity level of the players, a focus that we hadn’t really seen much throughout the year. And, here it is, I think the players saw how much better they were when they played good defense. So, I think a frame of mind change has already started.

NOW this team has some continuity on the offense, has direction on what to work on concerning their personal games (shooting, weight, strength, footwork), and the coaching staff can concentrate on the defense (along with a new defensive coaching assistant).

Brian Stewart

Hanner didn’t have a bad year, he was just hurt. The poor kid can’t catch a break. First the NCAA smacks him down over some stupid crap – remember the bumper stickers? Then he can’t go to Canada because the Canadians were worried he was some kind of south American radical or something and wouldn’t accept his travel papers, then he gets hurt – twice! I though he played really hard this year, and if can stay health next season he can be a huge asset!

phaluska

Potential NBA decisions for Yogi and Troy? Really? I don’t see Troy on many boards and Yogi is mid to late second round at best. They need to show they can regularly excel at this level. I hope they do they right thing and get back in the gym and work on their game to improve their position on the draft board next year…

Hoosierkamp

amazing podcast. this team will flirt around top 25 all year, maybe reach top 20 at times if they all return, which is solid. However, this team lands a Bryant, they will be top 20 all year maybe reaching top 10. Get excited! its not perfect, but good. We need to all support what we have moving forward to help land recruits.

IUMIKE1

AMEN, can I get a hallelujah brothers and sisters !

IUMIKE1

Exactly, the kid can’t get through a whole season without catching a bad break, no pun intended. When HMP can go to filling a role on this team of being “one” of the rim protectors and helpside defenders and not be “the” rim protector, everyone is going to benefit. I think, next year, we all will feel like he is contributing a lot more than he did this year and I think he will be able to better utilize his raw athleticism that way.